eBay Spends $354k On Government Lobbying In 2nd Quarter

Published on August 23rd, 2011. Written by Debbie Parker.

eBay disclosed that it spent $353,850 in the second quarter of the year to lobby the federal government about several issues such as data security, online privacy, and online sales tax collection. This is according to the company's quarterly disclosure report that was recently made available to the public.

The amount is less than the $424,500 it spent in the first quarter of 2011 or the $363,500 it spent a year ago in the same quarter. It looks like eBay made some cuts on its lobbying funds. Or perhaps it doesn't need to lobby for some of the issues anymore.

Aside from the above-mentioned issues, eBay is said to have lobbied for issues involving organized retail crime, online retail job creation, greenhouse gas emissions and the use of behavioral tracking data on the internet. It is not a surprise that most of the issues were related to the internet.

In the second quarter of 2011, eBay lobbied the White House, Congress, the Commerce and Treasury Departments, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Reserve, the United States Trade Representative, and the Federal Communication Commission. This is according to the disclosure report filed with the House clerk's office last July 20, 2011.